Tribe Votes on Freed Slaves' Membership
Cherokee Nation citizenship was at stake Saturday in an election to determine whether descendants of people the Cherokee once owned as slaves should be counted as members of the tribe.

American Indians Sue Maine Prison Again
BANGOR, Maine -- American Indian inmates have sued state prison officials again, claiming they've been denied access to key religious requirements such as a sweat lodge, powwows and ceremonial food and music.

Woman's Screams Save Her From Attempted Rape by Morongo Indian man Franklyn James Scott of the Morongo Indian Reservation, entered the restaurant, brandished a box-cutter knife and demanded food from workers, but was turned away. Scott then allegedly followed a 23-year-old woman into the restroom, held her down and attempted to rape her, Contreras said. The woman's screams alerted customers and workers who came in, stopped the suspect and detained him until police arrived.

Native American trackers to step up border role
SELLS, Arizona (Reuters) - An elite group of Native American trackers that use skills handed down from the ancestral hunt is being tapped to play a larger role in securing the United States' borders. Little known outside law enforcement circles, the Shadow Wolves have hunted drug and human traffickers on a lonely stretch of the Arizona-Mexico border southwest of Tucson since the 1970s. In an age of unmanned aerial surveillance drones, video cameras and electronic sensors on the borders, the 14-member unit uses age-old "sign cutting" techniques to follow foot, horse and vehicle trails for miles across the cactus-studded wastes of the Tohono O'odham nation for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. - (Invasion!)

Australian Police Up Post-Abo-Riot Security
BRISBANE, Australia -- Security was stepped up at an Aboriginal community in remote northern Australia on Wednesday after rioters attacked a police station and ransacked a shop. About 300 people went on a rampage Tuesday night in the northern Queensland community of Aurukun, on the western edge of Queensland's Cape York Peninsula, attacking the police station, the town store and a tavern. - (Newsroom)

Tribe Keeps Fighting for Treaty Rights
LAS VEGAS -- The way Allen Moss sees it, vast stretches of the West and all of their wealth belong to the Indians. And despite being turned back in lawsuit after lawsuit for decades, the Western Shoshone leader says he won't rest until the U.S. government honors a 19th-century treaty that, according to the tribe, entitles it to reclaim ancestral lands extending from California through Nevada and Utah to Idaho.

Maori flagged in rape review - Maori in particular have a pre-disposition towards raping women.
The top researcher for the Department of Corrections has linked patriarchal societies - Maori in particular - with a pre-disposition towards raping women. Maori culture was flagged in a review by Corrections' senior research adviser, Dr Nick Wilson, regarding the pilot of a programme developed to treat high-risk rape offenders. In his review, Dr Wilson found two-thirds of all "high-risk" rapists, and half of all inmates sentenced for rape, were Maori. Those men were "significantly younger" than other rapists, the research showed, and tended to receive longer sentences. Dr Wilson wrote that rape was "socially defined" and most likely to occur in cultures that were violent and where males were considered dominant. In a paragraph discussing violence, and "ideology of male toughness and war", he wrote: "It is interesting to note that Maori have a proverb that states 'for women and land men die'." - (Newsroom)

Australia: Price on head of Aboriginal bushland fugitiveA bounty has been offered for information leading to the arrest of a notorious fugitive — the first time this has happened in Australia since Ned Kelly was gunned down and hanged. Acting NSW Premier John Watkins today announced a $50,000 reward for information aiding the capture of murder suspect Malcolm John Naden, who has reportedly been hiding out in bushland since June 2005. Naden is described as being of Aboriginal appearance. - (Newsroom)

Queen Joins Indians for Burial Ceremony
LONDON -- Queen Elizabeth II joined a group of American Indians on Wednesday to pay tribute to a Mohegan chief who traveled to England more than two centuries ago to complain directly to the king about British settlers encroaching on tribal lands.

Nomadic Tribe Struggles in Colombia
The tribe's future is bleak. Uprooted by Colombia's half-century-old civil conflict and forced into camps where their immune systems are exposed to unfamiliar germs, a third of the 200 Nukak who left the jungle are falling ill, according to Survivor International, a London-based humanitarian group.

Chile Indigenous Tribe Fights Extinction
Down to just 15 full-blooded members, the Kawesqar people could soon go the way of other indigenous tribes in Chile, its language and culture disappearing to all but the history books.

Tongan King Dies in New Zealand at 88
NUKU'ALOFA, Tonga -- Tonga's King Taufa'ahau Tupou IV, a towering figure in the tiny Pacific Island nation for four decades, has died in a New Zealand hospital, the government said Monday. He was 88.

Calif. Tribal College Close to Collapse
The demise of D-Q University would deal a heavy blow to the tribal college movement, supporters say. D-Q stands for Deganawidah-Quetzalcoatl, two iconic native leaders. The school was one of the six original tribal colleges in the United States, all founded between 1968 and 1972. Nationwide, the U.S. Department of Education recognizes 34 tribal colleges, most of which are two-year schools.

American Indians Protest Biker Bar Development
STURGIS, S.D. -- American Indian tribes trying to protect their sacred Bear Butte have purchased land around the Black Hills historic site to keep it out of the hands of developers eager to serve bikers who roar into town every year for a raucous road rally.

Crazy Horse Expanding Donor Base
CRAZY HORSE, S.D. -- The memorial to Crazy Horse will start its first national fund drive this fall with the intent of heeding the late sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski's parting words to "go slowly so you do it right."

Beer Blockade Seeks to End Tribal Drinking
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. -- In a desperate effort to fight the ravages of alcoholism on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, leaders of the Oglala Sioux tribe are threatening to set up roadblocks Wednesday and stop members from bringing in beer bought at four outlying stores.

Utah Tribe Divided Over Nuclear Waste
SKULL VALLEY, Utah -- Leon Bear, a stocky man in T-shirt and jeans, peers across the sagebrush-pocked valley where his ancestors once chased Pony Express riders and sees the future for his dwindling tribe.
Nuclear waste.

New Zealand: Hunt for 'filthy savage' Maori after rape attack
A man who repeatedly raped a woman in her South Auckland home on Tuesday night was a "filthy savage" who must be stopped, say police.
Detectives said they were appalled by the savagery of the attack when the man, who smelt of alcohol, handcuffed his 37-year-old victim and beat her repeatedly for five hours to make her do what he wanted.
Police said the attack was vicious, prolonged and premeditated, as the man had been watching the woman before he attacked.
The deeply traumatised woman was staying with relatives and may not go back to the home she owned and moved into less than a fortnight ago.
Detective Senior Sergeant Neil Grimstone said the man tricked his way into the woman's Pukekohe house about 9pm on Tuesday.
Once inside the man, a Maori in his late 30s or early 40s, handcuffed the woman, put a pillowcase over her head and "over the next four to five hours subjected her to an horrific sexual attack". "This filthy savage needs to be held to account and he needs to be caught and caught quickly. "In the space of four to five hours he has completely destroyed this woman's life and no female should ever be subjected to what this woman has gone through. - (Newsroom)

Violence Threatens Brazil Isolated Indians
More than one-quarter of Brazil's isolated Indian tribes face extinction unless the government defines the boundaries and gives them control of their land, a missionary group said Tuesday.

Aboriginal machete gangs devastate remote township FEUDING gangs armed with spears and machetes have run amok at the biggest Aboriginal settlement in Australia, destroying homes and terrifying families hiding from the violence.At least 28 homes have been destroyed in fighting between the Judas Priests and the Evil Warriors. About 300 men from each faction have been locked in confrontation. The fighting has overwhelmed police officers on the settlement, and reinforcements have been flown in from Darwin.

Aboriginal male rape problem in Australia
A look at sexual abuse in aboriginal communities finds the rape of boys surprisingly high, especially compared with the rest of Australia. Thirty-three percent said they had been abused, much higher than the 12 percent of men in the rest of the country, The Australian reports.

Letter says Yale Skull and Bones secret club has Geronimo skull - Discovery lends weight to ultra-secret Skull and Bones society lore
A Yale University historian has uncovered a 1918 letter that seems to lend validity to the lore that Yale University’s ultra-secret Skull and Bones society swiped the skull of American Indian leader Geronimo.
The letter, written by one member of Skull and Bones to another, purports that the skull and some of the Indian leader’s remains were spirited from his burial plot in Fort Sill, Okla., to a stone tomb in New Haven that serves as the club’s headquarters.
According to Skull and Bones legend, members — including President Bush’s grandfather, Prescott Bush — dug up Geronimo’s grave when a group of Army volunteers from Yale were stationed at the fort during World War I. Geronimo died in 1909.

Fla. Officials to Buy Indian Battle Site
State officials announced plans Tuesday to spend $3.2 million to buy and preserve the battlefield where Seminole and Miccosukee Indians and escaped slaves fought hand-to-hand with the U.S. Army in 1837.

Indian Trust Land Suit Opens Old Wounds
PRIOR LAKE, Minn. -- The dispute originates in Minnesota's bloody early years as a state, when Indian revolts against bad land deals culminated in the Sioux Uprising of 1862.

S. American Indians Seek New Nation
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil -- Indians from Brazil and four other South American countries called for the "resurrection" of an Indian nation on Tuesday, the 250th anniversary of the killing of a tribal chief by European soldiers. Thousands of Indians belonging to what they call the "Guarani nation" walked three hours from Sao Gabriel do Sul, 900 miles south of Rio de Janeiro, to the site where chief Sepe Tiaraju was killed in 1756 at the hands of Portuguese and Spanish soldiers.

Bolivia: Morales to Seek Blessing From Andean Gods - No Human Sacrifice Reported In the ancient temple of a lost civilization far from the capital, Evo Morales will ask Andean gods for help and guidance Saturday on the eve of his inauguration as Bolivia's first Indian president.
Tens of thousands of people are expected to converge on the archaeological remains of the Tiawanacu civilization that flourished around 5,000 B.C. near the shores of Lake Titicaca, 40 miles outside of La Paz.
There, Morales, a U.S. critic who won by a landslide on a leftist platform, will be blessed by Indian priests who consider themselves inheritors of this pre-Incan culture, which had no written language and disappeared mysteriously.
Morales will walk onto the Akapana pyramid, put on a red tunic with gold and black detail, and accept a baton from the priests that symbolizes his Indian leadership. Morales will then walk alone and barefoot into the Kalasasaya temple before emerging to greet the crowd.
- (Abo) Exd 20:3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

Canada: Police Seek Dangerous Aboriginal Sex PredatorA Toronto woman is in hospital with serious injuries after being held captive, beaten and sexually assaulted. Now police are now on the hunt for a man with a history of violence. Walter Andrew Macdonald is facing a list of charges including forcible confinement and threatening death. She alleges he kept her there for 2 days and repeatedly assaulted her. He's described as Aboriginal, 5'8", 169 pounds with black hair and brown eyes. - (-88-) - (Canada) - (Abo) - Toronto Police News Release with mugshot

Safari
with the Hadzabe:
The Hadzabe will eat anything that moves.
Elephant, giraffe, lion--you name it...
The modern world has
found a variety of uses for leftover hunter-gatherers.
Time
and again, they have taken up urban positions as bums, criminals, or alcoholics.

The
Ignoble Savage - by Thomas S. Garlinghouse
Bashers of Western civilization
wax nostalgic over an imagined Golden Age, when Noble Savages, uncontaminated
by capitalism, enjoyed peace, harmony and environmental balance. In reality, prehistoric
peoples waged incessant, brutal wars and hunted vast numbers of animal species
to extinction - perhaps even the woolly mammoth and other great Ice Age creatures
of North America.